[ACGG Post] Router/Networking guide.

[Please Note, this Post is part of the ASTRO Community Gaming Group and is used strictly for information. In no way does ASTRO specifically endorse any particular product or company, but these are suggestions of some available products out on the market that have been made by our Community. -ASTRO Warblade]

This will be a big guide, so I'm going to split it into a number of sections. Any questions don't hesitate to ask and as always corrections or suggestions are very welcome.

Router guide:

Now, it is up to your budget and personal situation that decides the router you will get but at the present moment the best router I know of for internet access and internet gaming is the Linksys WRT54GL router, I obviously don't recommend that you use the wireless feature of this router for gaming, a hardline to the router from your PC or console is the best possible connection, making the ethernet cord as short as possible is good as well, investing in some good quality cable or crimping and punch tools for making your own custom cables is a good option to. Regardless of the router you have or are going to buy, everyone will have to go over their router settings. First you need to know your routers address, use this list to find your router and the defult guide for your router to find your routers address, by defult most routers username and password is admin, you can change this if you like.

after gaining access to your router you can then pick and chose the settings you want, every router is different and most have a help section to guide you through your settings. What you should look for at first is a UpNp setting, find that and turn it on, there isn't much else you have to do if your router has UpNp capability. If your router does not have this setting you are going to have to forward ports on your router for the specific game and or setup a static IP. This is a long and tedious process and can be quite frustrating. For specific guides on how to do this for your router visit www.portfoward.com, find your router on the router list which was linked before and follow the guides provided, if you have any questions that these guides do not cover or am having trouble feel free to ask and I will try to help as much as I can.

For selecting a router it's pretty much going to be the same run as it would be for buying any product, research the product, read reviews and compare specifications. If you are unsure post here and i will try to help as much as I can.

ISP (internet service provider):

This is going to be different for each country and so I cannot give specific recommendations for certain companies to use. First thing you must do is check your services quality you can do this quite easily by using http://www.speedtest.net/ you want your PING to be low, generally less than 50 is good, less than 100 is ok and 100-150 is bearable and more than 150 is unacceptable for gameplay. There is nothing you specifically can do to lower your ping, it's your ISP that is responsible for this. I suggest oyu try the speedtest multiple times to get an average, it tends to fluctuate and most online internet tests are quite inaccurate. In general a good download speed is from around 10mbps, I have heard of people having good results with a 6mbps connection, now your uploads will be much lower than your downloads, around 1mbps is good, some people have 2mbps or little more, some as low as 0.2mbps, this will affect the information about what you are doing in the game to the other people playing and visa versa for what other people are doing in the game for download speed. Many companies state that they are gaming ISPs and again for these companies and all ISP companies it comes down to researching reviews and comparing ISPs.

Other people on your network:

In short for the best experience and service, kick em off. The more people using your service the more bandwidth is begin sued and the less your console or PC is getting. So, either pick a time to game that you know you will be the only one on your network. Some routers have the option to give one connection priority over others, if your router supports this feature find your console or PCs connection and give it priority so it can take as much bandwidth as it needs. You can also have another ISP specifically for you if you wish, it's obviously going to cost you but sometimes it's the only option.

Hope this has helped, for some reason I feel like I've missed one or two things but after fifteen minuets of searching my mind I can't think of anything more. If anything springs to mind I'll add it in so keep an eye out.

If you have anything to add feel free, the help is welcome.

-Nevermind

For anyone wondering, I have a TP-LINK TL-WR642G with UpNp enabled and I've wired my house myself....if you have to go into your roof to run a cable, make sure to get coveralls that are tight at the openings and a really good breathing mask, cover as much of your skin as possible, fiberglass insulation on your skin is uncomfortable and when it's in your lungs it's even worse, and can be fatal. Depending on how your house is constructed you may need to buy extra tools for the job like drill extensions to drill holes through wall studs to run the cable. If it is requested enough I will make a guide on how to tun ethernet cables through your house, how to install ethernet wall jacks and make custom ethernet cords.

wireless systems are good for casual gaming but for competitive gaming a hardline is preferred.

Click to expand...

I use a wireless connection at home and my connection is surprisingly great. Better than most if not all of my friends, even more unusual I have the g adapter on my xbox. I have no idea why any of this is true, because obviously wired would be better, but I just thought I'd put in my two cents and give hope to those with wireless connections

I had the strangest setup for awhile, since my router was so far away and I couldn't connect it via hardline connection (I was also using an Apple Airport Express & Cable modem, so there was no extra Cat5 space for my xbox).

Anyways, I used to use the network sharing feature on my Macbook, attach the ethernet from the macbook to the Xbox360, and run my connection that way. I was never able to get a open NAT settings, but it worked fine for gaming. =P

Since then, I bought an Apple Airport Extreme, and moved my cable modem to where my entertainment system is and have both the Xbox360 and the TivoHD hard lined to my network.

"f it is requested enough I will make a guide on how to tun ethernet cables through your house, how to install ethernet wall jacks and make custom ethernet cords." - i think you should do it, reading over this guide it is very good. i would like to learn other more useful stuff like that... you should do it.

I use a Linksys WRT54G. Really feature packed. You can handle ethernet, wireless B and G. I have the option to expressly use G and not B, both at the same time, and no wireless at all. There's SSID broadcast on or off. There's MAC address filtering. There's remote dial in administration. There's several encryption schemes for wireless- WEP, WPA, LEAP (from 40 bit to 128 bit). There's a firewall feature too. You can limit the number of DHCP users...

So many features and it was cheap when I got one in 2003 (2,600 Pesos). Linksys by the way is the consumer relative of Cisco. You might find a cheaper wireless G router from D-Link. I didn't shop around.